In the wake of an epic volcano collapse, UXM 114 starts out with a simple scene of Hank and Jean trapped in an Antarctic blizzard. Brief though it is, the scene highlights a depth of skill and craftsmanship by all creators involved, achieving a rare emotional impact. #xmen 1/12 Image
The opening splash shows a haggard-looking Hank fighting the elements with Jean in his arms. In true Will Eisner style, the hill Beast is climbing forms the stylized title of the issue: “Desolation.” Ice crystals form all across his fur and his face is mired in shadow. 2/12 Image
The previous issue had ended with Hank’s strength failing, causing him to collapse in the snow. The opening splash thus portrays his heroic second wind. Claremont’s narration accentuates this by highlighting Hank’s indomitable will within an utterly doomed enterprise: 3/12 Image
“He should have died hours ago. In fact, he almost had, lying face-down in the snow, sleeping his life away. But something deep within forced him to his feet, forced him to pick up the girl, forced him to start walking across the Antarctic Wastes.” 4/12 Image
“It would have been so easy to stop. But he didn’t. Hank McCoy, Avenger. Jean Grey, X-Man. They need only one thing to survive this night…A miracle!” Interestingly, the choice to list their full names and professions connotes an obituary. 5/12 Image
The reader is primed for this death imagery through the flagrantly misleading (maybe delightfully so) cover which seems to portray a wake and shows all but Hank, Jean, and the Professor as ghosts with the caption “The Day the X-Men Died!” 6/12 Image
Though beautifully pencilled by Byrne and starkly inked by Austin, the MVP of the scene has to be Glynnis Oliver whose myriad of deep blues and then brilliant yellows against the black backdrop create a viscerally immersive blizzard. 7/12 Image
The juxtaposition of fire and ice is also poignantly felt – to escape from lava only to find yourself freezing to death in the dead of night. This dichotomy is revisited when Jean’s fire and light come alive to save them, made all the richer through the contrast. 8/12 Image
That starkness then informs Jean’s reaction to waking up: immediately summoning unfathomable power in a desperate bid to find her teammates. Though she’d later explain that it’s the X-Men she wants to find, her first reaction is to scream “Scott” alone. 9/12 Image
As rescue arrives, Hank pleads with Jean to accept the unthinkable – the X-Men are dead. Turn the page, however, and the truth is revealed, but seeing the depth of Jean and Hank’s grief – which is not resolved for months - keeps the scene from feeling cheap or misleading. 10/12 Image
This transition is also important structurally, signalling a deviation from the compartmentalized story arcs that dominated comics of the time, and still today. Magneto is gone, but the story will just keep moving, first to the Savage Land, then to Japan, then to Calgary. 11/12 Image
All combined, it’s a simple scene with a remarkable volume of craft and innovation on full display. Every piece of the machine connects to create a brief harrowing moment of grief and despair and acceptance that informs the characters and scenes to come for months on end. 12/12 Image

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More from @ClaremontRun

Feb 8
In a 2020 piece for the Journal of Comics and Graphic Novels, Nicholas Holm speaks to the “Britishness” of Claremont’s Excalibur and how it implicitly validates Thatcherism through a lack of understanding of British society outside of popular culture. #xmen 1/9 Image
“Claremont’s Britain would seem to have its shallow foundations in cultural references, rather than a social existence, and therefore manifests almost entirely at the level of aesthetic surface.” 2/9 Image
“The result is more however than simply a denial or absence of politics, but rather a celebration of a timeless and stable UK that feeds into conservative worldview.” 3/9 Image
Read 10 tweets
Jan 26
There’s an argument to be made that many of the unique ideas that manifest in Uncanny X-Men, including the codename and backstory of Illyana Rasputin, come forward from a small occult store in Chelsea and the culture surrounding it. #xmen 1/10 Image
A key member of this culture is Bonnie Wilford, aka Greymalkin, alleged to be a prominent Wiccan High Priestess in NYC, and known to be a skilled jeweller, a traffic manager for Marvel (and occasional colorist) and Claremont’s first wife. 2/10 Image
Wilford also teamed with Claremont to compose a sort of occult story bible for future Dr. Strange authors to re-outline the occult mythology surrounding that character – a mythology still in use extensively today, including the MCU. 3/10 Image
Read 10 tweets
Jan 17
In the pages of UXM, Claremont would go on to achieve a number of highly significant comics firsts for representation, but one of his most famous comes in Iron Fist, with what is widely considered the first mainstream interracial kiss in comics’ history. #xmen #IronFist 1/11
C’s UXM resume includes what has been identified as the first African-American superheroine (Cocca 125), the first black superhero team leader (Darowski 78), and the first canonically Jewish superhero (Cronin). Misty/Danny comes before all of these, however. 2/11
The kiss comes in 1977. Really importantly, it is not a high fantasy setting, a future story, or a random kiss with no emotional attachments, but the rational fulfillment of a pre-established and carefully cultivated romantic trajectory. 3/11
Read 11 tweets
Jan 16
Mariko Yashida is a fairly minor character in UXM (though certainly not to Logan), but a fascinating one, situated within a complex nexus of historical and fictional Japanese women within the Western imaginary. #xmen #wolverine 1/8
In an essay on Wolverine, Eric Sobel connects Logan/Mariko to the longstanding trope of “The Geisha and the White Man” which scholar Sheridan Prasso discusses as a Western media conception popularized by “Madame Butterfly” (beginning with Puccini’s 1904 opera version). 2/8
This idea is broad, but tends to operate around a narrative in which the Geisha character is trapped by honour and duty – including a lack of agency within her society - and thus doomed by her tragic love for the white man. In Butterfly, her only option is suicide. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
Jan 15
In a 2006 interview, John Byrne discusses his personal vision for Wolverine in contrast with what eventually found its way into Marvel canon. Byrne had wanted to Logan to have a different backstory, different species, and even a different (but familiar) face. #xmen #wolverine 1/7 Image
“My back-story for Wolverine was that Sabretooth was his father. Sabretooth was the mutant, and the mutation had bred true. So Wolverine was in fact the first of a new species and I intended him to turn out to be a hundred years old, something like that.” 2/7 Image
This may have been C’s plan as well, as Byrne suggests by noting a throwaway reference to Logan’s complex mutanity. Byrne also envisioned that “His mother was a Native Canadian and he’d lived up in the mountains for most of his life, feral, until he was found by James Hudson” 3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
Dec 19, 2021
In Excalibur #23, Claremont revisits one of his greatest character projects: Illyana Rasputin. Rather than take the AU story in the direction of the better-life-not-led, however, Claremont adds depth to Illyana’s 616 sacrifice by showing us the alternative. #xmen #Magik 1/8
In the pages of UXM, Magik, and The New Mutants, Claremont built Illyana up as a deeply symbolic character, exploring childhood trauma through an abstract metaphor of surviving hell and having to integrate back into a more innocent world. 2/8
It was Louise Simonson, however, who wrote Illyana’s ending (with some co-ordination from C) in which Illyana sacrifices the life she’s struggled to build to prevent the hell of her making from overtaking others. It might be the finest writing of Simonson’s storied career. 3/8
Read 9 tweets

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